Free Shooting the Sphinx by Avram Noble Ludwig Page B

Hanawy with a regal gesture as if shooing away a bug. “Ahmed Maher was my teacher. He taught me to fly. He taught me the MiG-21 fighter jet. He taught me how to stay alive and how to kill the Israeli pilots. He put me in the squadron of Hosni Mubarak.” The general pointed at a younger picture of himself in uniform with Mubarak as his squadron commander. “Without Ahmed Maher, I would have died in the skies over Sinai when I was twenty-two years old. And he has asked me to help you. What may I offer you? Whiskey? Wine?”
    â€œOh, no, thank you.” Ari shook his head.
    â€œIt is not a problem. We keep those for our American friends. And there is always the proverbial mint tea,” added the general, as a tea tray landed on his desk and the porter handed Ari his cup.
    â€œSo my teacher, Ahmed Maher, told me you are from Hollywood, California?”
    â€œOh, no, sir. I live in New York, but he is correct. I do work for the movies, and I’m a pilot. If you ever come to New York, I will take you flying,” Ari continued. “I will fly you down the Hudson River, over Central Park, over the Brooklyn Bridge, next to the skyscrapers of Wall Street, out over New York Harbor, then we’ll fly in a tight circle around the Statue of Liberty.”
    As different as these two men were, they were both pilots. They knew something about each other that regular people didn’t. They shared the fellowship of addicts hooked on a drug they had to wait ever so carefully to use. The price of this drug was competence—and a thorough understanding of how not to use it. Within a minute’s inattention, one could cause, then suffer, the most terrifying fate. Every time one stepped into the cockpit, then pulled up and off the runway, a specter of death hovered, always quickening the heart just a little bit—waiting for the slightest mistake or malfunction, and making one feel a little more alive.
    â€œAhmed Maher said you require some assistance with aerial photography?” asked the general.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œAnd the Egyptian Air Force will not provide what you need?”
    Sell him first, thought Ari, then tell him your troubles. “Oh it’s complicated, but … If I may, sir?”
    Ari leapt out of his chair and set up the pyramids and Sphinx on the general’s desk. The general raised his hand.
    â€œOne moment.” The general picked up his phone and barked an order in Arabic.
    â€œBefore you start, let me call in my number two.” General Hanawy leaned in confidentially. “I am something of a figurehead here. He is really the one who runs this company, Mustapha Shawky. He is a good man. He was never in the Air Force, but all of his brothers were. His is a fine family.”
    A very short bald man with a moustache and a hand-tailored Egyptian suit walked in.
    â€œHello?” said the diminutive Shawky, looking at Ari and not knowing what to expect.
    â€œMustapha, this is Mr. Ariel Basher from New York and Hollywood. Ahmed Maher Shehata, my flight instructor, sent him to us. He is about to make a presentation. Go ahead please.”
    Ari finished placing the pyramids and Sphinx on the desk.
    â€œSo, here’s the Great Pyramid, and the others.”
    â€œAs they would be situated,” said the general.
    â€œBut the Sphinx would be below them,” Shawky corrected him.
    The general turned on Shawky annoyed. “Of course, that goes without saying.”
    Ari picked up the toy helicopter and mimed the action as he described it.
    â€œSo the shot would start very close, tight on the head of the Sphinx, so tight that we wouldn’t know where we were. Then, as the helicopter orbits the Sphinx, we start to see the head and recognize it. As we pull back, we see the whole body. We come around back here and go right past the tip-top of the pyramid of Khafre and the pyramid of Khufu. Then we see the whole Necropolis—and the desert in